Brand: Amazon
Product: Kindle DX
Target: Students and Newspaper Readers
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
Amazon today launched the Kindle DX, a new eBook reader with a larger screen than the recently introduced Kindle 2.  The screen measures 8.5″ x 11″, the size of a sheet of ordinary notebook paper.  The device retails for $489 and appears initially to be targeted at students and newspaper readers.  Amazon has concluded deals with a number of textbook publishers as well as several universities including Case Western University, Pace, Princeton, Reed, Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State University.

What Works:
The Kindle DX will undoubtedly be revolutionary for students if textbook prices can be lowered enough to compensate for the cost of the device.  Parents and orthopedists will ultimately thank Amazon as younger children ultimately adopt the device and ditch absurdly heavy backpacks.

The bigger news about the Kindle DX is that it shows that there is still a slim chance that traditional newspapers might avoid extinction if they act quickly and decisively.  The availability of newspaper content for free on the Internet, the defection of classified advertising to Craig Newmark ’s brainchild craigslist as well as the increasing use of Google News and Google search by consumers to source news have combined to put newspapers in a dangerous state.  A number of smaller papers have closed and even giants like the New York Times show signs of weakness.

Large screen eBook readers like the Kindle DX show a possible path to salvation.  By eliminating the cost of printing and distribution and making the screen large enough to accomodate some advertising, the Kindle DX may persuade readers to subscribe to newspapers again.  Like the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX has a 3G wireless cell chip in it that allows newspapers and books to be downloaded immediately without connection to a computer.  The Kindle DX also has a more substantial web browser - presumably to allow the newspaper advertising to be more funtional for advertisers.

The concept is good.  This reviewer often reads the NY Times on the Kindle 2 long before he ventures to the lobby of his manhattan building to discover which creative new place the delivery company for the Wall Street Journal has deposited the paper.

What Doesn’t:

Amazon is not helping itself with the absurdly high price for the Kindle DX of $489.  This makes the Kindle DX more expensive than most netbook computers which allow readers to wirelessly read newspapers for free, as well as accomplishing other tasks the Kindle DX cannot do.  While this is also true of the Kindle 2, the Kindle 2’s size makes it feel more like the replacement for a paperback book.  Amazon may be able to achieve economies of scale for the Kindle DX simply by pursuing it as a textbook replacement, for which it is better suited at the pricepoint.  But it will not create a breakthrough for newspapers without a minimum 50% price drop.

Amazon also touted newspaper partnerships which would help subsidize the cost of the device with a long-term subscription.  This turns out to have been more wishful thinking than substance, as the New York Times announced these subsidies would only be available for rural readers who could not get home delivery.   This is really a missed opportunity for the newspaper industry which should be supporting these new devices in every way possible (free reader with three year subscription, anyone?).  Instead the New York Times continues on with the stone age marketing techniques that brought us the classic ploy of penetration pricing (offering new subscribers lower prices for a short time), thus assuring that the most loyal readers will be punished with the highest prices.  The Times business managers should peer from the top floor of their new building over to Sony-BMG and the ruins of the rest of the music industry to understand what happens when an industry fails to adapt its revenue model to technology.

Branding Bottom Line:
Amazon introduces an amazing innovation for the citizens of Monaco.

Issue: Disney Investment in Hulu brings ABC programming
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri

Today Walt Disney is reported to be taking an equity stake in Hulu under a deal that will bring ABC content like Lost and Desperate Housewives to Hulu.  In just over 24 months, Hulu has gone from being yet another silly startup funded by old media giants NBC (GE) and Fox (Newscorp) to the dominant long-form video destination on the web with ad revenue expected to surpass Youtube in 2009.

The formula to success however, has nothing to do with Web 2.0 wizardry.  Quite the opposite.  This advertising blog believes that Hulu is great because it’s brought the simplicity of the 1950’s to online video.  The magic formula has two parts:

1. Put everything in one place
2. Don’t overwhelm programming with advertising

Hulu defied corporate tradition by linking to content they did not carry.   If a prime-time television show could be found anywhere on the Internet, watching it was as simple as going to Hulu and searching, whether that landed you on Hulu or a media web site.  This probably seemed foolish to competitors at the time.  Why send customers away?  But it turned Hulu into the Google for long-form video content - the best, most relevant place to search and find television shows and movies.

The second part to Hulu’s success was dictated by the online environment, which is notoriously unfriendly to interruptive video advertising.  Consider two ways of watching an episode of FOX’s hit drama ‘House’.  Turn on FOX on a Monday night and you’ll get the full episode of House - 42 minutes - served up with 18 minutes of advertising.  On Hulu, watch the same episode with just five commercial breaks of thirty seconds each.

What’s not immediately obvious is that the second strategy works better - even before Hulu starts targeting the ads it shows based on your user profile.  Why?  Because you’re much more likely to watch a :30 second ad than a three-minute advertising pod.  In fact with DVR penetration increasing to record levels, it is becoming clearer that fewer and fewer television viewers are watching advertising at all.

Hulu is a great success, but the point here is that part of their magic formula is simple: they aren’t greedy.  If television networks hadn’t progressively crammed more and more commercials down viewer’s throats, we’d probably still be watching there, too.  Ask FRINGE …

Brand: Fiesta (Ford)
Execution: Web, Twitter, Facebook, Experiential Marketing
Target: Urban Drivers
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
To launch the 2011 Ford Fiesta, a new version of the subcompact car, Ford is using a year-long experiential marketing campaign called Fiesta Movement.  Ford interviewed over 1,000 hopefuls to award 100 of them keys to their own new Ford Fiesta for six months.  They will complete “missions” which will involve using the cars in different ways and “lifestream” the results over social media.  In parallel and during the week of the New York Auto Show’s opening, Ford invited key Twitters and Bloggers to test-drive a 2009 Euro-spec Ford Fiesta, which will is the car that the U.S. 2011 model will be based on.

What Works:
Ford hired Crayon social media guru Scott Monty to run its social marketing programs and he has put together a clever offering for the Fiesta.  Ford realized that a significant portion of subcompact sales (particularly of hot models like the Honda Fit and Nissan Versa) are clustered in five key cities around the U.S.  This made a social networking strategy viable for the brand launch of the new Fiesta. The Fiesta occupies a key market niche for Ford, one which has been long dominated by Japanese brands and is led by the Honda Fit.  The 2011 Fiesta will bring a Euro-sensibility to the small car niche as the design will be brought over from the model currently on sale in Europe.  Ford is following a classic influencer model on one end, with activities like blogger/twitterer test drives conducted around the time of major Auto Shows.  At the same time, the Fiesta Movement offers both the chance for word-of-mouth marketing and consumer generated advertising similar to the Nissan Sentra launch where blogger Adam Horowitz was challenged to live out of the car for a week.

The targeting and the social networking make this launch a good test case for both twitter and expanded social marketing programs in the car arena.

What Doesn’t:
A movement that starts a full year before the product launches is a huge commitment, so Ford will have to keep its eyes on the road to avoid crashing this one.

Branding Bottom Line:
Ford thought it was all a great idea until it put this blogger behind the wheel.

Brand: Charmin
Execution: Online, iPhone Applicantion
Target: Mobile Bottoms
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
Following its longstanding theme of using experiential marketing to help people find good toilets, Procter & Gamble brand Charmin has introduced a website and iPhone application that allows users to locate a free toilet anywhere in the world using Google Maps.  The application is GPS-enabled on the iPhone 3G.

What Works:
A simple, brilliant application that may be the best brand-sponsored widget ever created.  Procter & Gamble solves a real-world problem by cataloging the world’s free toilets and connecting this information to Google Maps which is already the preferred location application on the iPhone.

What Doesn’t:
Reports have not yet come in to assess the accuracy of the Charmin toilet database.  If the information is not kept accurate and up-to-date this little iPhone application could become a big pain in P&G’s behind.

Branding Bottom Line:
Charmin mapping the world’s free toilets is probably more useful than NASA charting the lunar surface.

A few quick thoughts for those of you still looking for the silver lining in the cloud of gloom that surrounds us …

1. Find your core customer  - This is trickier that it sounds because your core customers may not be the biggest spenders.  They are the people who attract others to your business, who are the “acid test” for your brand and who represent your brand in the minds of other customers.
2. Become a direct marketer - Test everything before you commit large dollars.  Instead of running a huge promotion, try it on a small group of customers and see how it does.  Send out an e-mail to 1,000 prospects before you reach out to 100,000.
3. Add value instead of cutting price - If your price is grossly unrealistic, lower it.  But first consider bundling in extra value at current prices.  Add samples, extra services or custom consultations.  You’ll increase the value of your offerings but help maintain your price points, which are harder to raise than cut.
4. Narrow your brand positioning - A recession is a tempting time to try to be all things to all people just to maintain revenue.  But people are drawn to expertise more than ever in a recession and nothing shows expertise better than a narrow focus.  Even if you don’t cut products or services, make sure your communications focus on your core expertise.
5. Look for opportunities - Save marketing dollars to spend opportunistically.  Large competitors in particular tend to make marketing cuts in big chunks and implement them very quickly.  This can leave bargains in media or even PR.  Watch your competitors closely to find the best moment to spend instead of pre-planning all of your expenditures.  If your business is seasonal, save extra money to capitalize on unexpected media or PR opportunities during your high season.

You may know the details by now (and if not see Jackie Huba, Susan Gunelius or Stuart Elliott at the NY Times for excellent recaps), but Tropicana has suffered a new media thrashing at the hands of brand advocates unhappy with the new packaging by The Arnell Group.The enthusiasts are correct here, the packaging does indeed look more generic than the familiar packaging it replaces.  The brand name is recessive and the product shot of the glass of orange juice stretched over two panels of the carton makes the product look like private label.  The new packaging is also less functional, as it is harder to identify the form (with or without pulp, with added calcium, etc) as that information was banished from the main panel to the top flap only.  Finally, in spite of Peter Arnell’s elaborate doubletalk, showing the juice on the package rather than the orange was a huge mistake for a brand whose primary competitive claim is that it is squeezed fresh from oranges and not made from concentrate.

The two more interesting questions from our point of view are:

1. When should I spend the money to redesign packaging?
2. How can I avoid a Tropicana fiasco with my own re-branding campaign?

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Rebrand when you have news - a significant product innovation or dramatic improvement is a good reason to rebrand
2. Rebrand if your market position changes - if a competitor threatens your brand positioning and you need to focus, narrow or shift the position
3. Rebrand if you have new, innovative packaging - a packaging innovation is a good time to rebrand or just refresh the packaging look
4. Refresh if you want to update the brand image - if the brand is stale and needs an update, make evolutionary changes to modernize the packaging

The Arnell Group would have served Pepsi and the Tropicana better to focus on refreshing the packaging rather than entirely rebranding it.   The Pepsi logo rebrand was no less pointless than the Tropicana packaging overhaul, but it will be far less damaging because Arnell merely refreshed the logo by tilting it and adding a bulge.

Part of the lesson here is that if you don’t really understand what a creative guy is telling you, there’s probably a reason for that.

Brand: CASH4Gold.com
Execution: TV (Super Bowl)
Target: Those Awaiting Foreclosure
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
Two celebrities from the 1980’s - Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon and rapper M.C. Hammer expound on the joy of selling all of one’s gold possessions for cash with numerous ironic references to their own troubles.

What Works:
This ad is brilliant not because of the execution - which looks similar to dozens of late-night cable ads - but because of the media placement on the Super Bowl.  Trained as we are to spot irony and wait for the punchline, this ad delivers exactly because the punchline never comes.  We expect an Energizer bunny to interrupt the ad, but it doesn’t happen.  It really is a spot featuring Ed McMahon and M.C. Hammer mocking their own bankruptcies and faded celebrity for the online equivalent of a pawn shop.  As such, this ad was one of the 10-most remembered ads of the Super Bowl even though it came from a brand with no brand recognition and cost a fraction of many of the other spots on the show.  Probably the most brilliant media placement decision of the decade.

What Doesn’t:
Even if the service is necessary, seeing the ad connected to the Super Bowl reminded us just how far our nation has fallen.   It’s never a good sign when the bottom-feeders look like the most savvy marketers.

Branding Bottom Line:
A brilliant media coup that still makes us feel violated.

Issue: How should the Obama administration improve the perception of Brand America?
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri

As President-elect Obama has often noted, the international perception of the United States of America has a huge influence on our ability to accomplish our foreign policy goals.  Terrorism is more likely to be thwarted by the cooperation of the local police in Munich, a school teacher in a madrassa in London or a minor warlord in Somalia than by the direct efforts of the U.S. intelligence services.  Similarly, friendly governments cannot support U.S. policy goals without the support of their electorates, something that has been in short supply in recent years.

Electing an African-American, bi-racial President and one of the most charismatic and internationally popular politicians in a generation to our highest office will do much to change world opinion of Brand America.  It is only the first step, however.

Under the Bush administration, these duties were concentrated in the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  The post was taken by key bush communications advisor Karen Hughes.  Ms. Hughes travelled and spoke widely in an attempt to improve America’s image abroad, and the budget for advertising the United States was $685 million as recently as 2004.  This (as Forbes notes) is not as much as Coca-Cola spent on advertising in the same year.  However, considering that it had little or no impact on the actual brand perception of the U.S. (which declined), it is a huge amount of money.

Heretical as it seems for an advertising blog, I would suggest a completely different orientation for America’s next brand manager - one which does not involve advertising.

Instead of limiting U.S. brand efforts to the State Department and the Office for Public Diplomacy, President Obama should put a real, live brand manager in the West Wing.  The incoming administration understands that the largest part of perception of the U.S. will be shaped by the President and by foreign policy.  These issues are obviously out of the reach of any brand manager.  Therefore, the U.S. brand manager should focus on becoming the “God of Small Things.”  These small things can have an enormous impact on the way that the United States is viewed internationally and they are routinely ignored.

What do I mean by this?  The new U.S. brand manager should focus on small improvements in the way that the U.S. government interacts with its own citizens and foreign nationals.  These improvements can fundamentally alter the perception of the brand overall (this is one of the things I learned from Roxanne Quimby from Burt’s Bees, Craig Newark from craigslist, Gary Erickson from Clif Bar and wrote about in Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands last year).

A good example of this focus can be found in the Bloomberg Administration in New York.  Mayor Bloomberg stepped into office at a historically difficult time in New York City’s history.  It was just weeks after the September 11th attacks, he was succeeding a suddenly enormously popular mayor, Rudy Guiliani and the city was in the midst of an epic financial crisis compounded by the attacks on the financial district.

One of the seemingly small things that Mayor Bloomber did (although it involved a huge amount of effort) was to create a single number - 3-1-1 - where New Yorkers or visitors could call to get information from all of the agencies of the city.  Calling 3-1-1 could do anything from checking on local tax laws, reporting noise complaint or open fire hydrants, checking the status of parking tickets or voting registration.  The city of Baltimore was the first U.S. city to implement a 3-1-1 number in 1996, but the New York implementation was vastly larger.  And the surprising thing was that it improved both the perception and the reality of city government.  Before 3-1-1, New York City had a wealth of resources and programs that could be of help to citizens but most of them were buried in layers of bureacracy.  By training individuals to navigate the system, 3-1-1 added transparency and also gave local government a way to check redundancies and track actual citizen needs.  3-1-1 became an interactive tool, allowing city managers to concentrate resources on the areas of greatest demand.

A new U.S. Brand Manager could focus on a number of small improvements to the manner in which the U.S. government touches U.S. citizens and foreign nationals including:

1. 3-1-1 - Implementation of a national 3-1-1 number (1-1-1?) which would consolidate all U.S. government functions from the IRS to National Passport Service to Homeland Security
2. Online Immigration Access - Creation of online application and tracking system for H1B and other visas which would include stage-by-stage tracking, similar to the UPS or Fedex scanning system
3. Customer Service Training - Comprehensive and standardized training of U.S. government workers in contact with the public in private sector customer service techniques.
4. U.S. Brand Environment - translating our values (democracy, fairness, ingenuity) into a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. public spaces abroad.  Ensuring that waiting areas and lines in U.S. embassies and overseas offices are efficient and unexpectedly pleasant experiences.  Good analogues exist in the overhaul of Department of Motor Vehicle offices in a number of U.S. States (including New York) as well as the marriage bureau in New York City to be faster and more pleasant experiences.
5. Disaster and Relief Services - Giving a common “look and feel” to U.S. disaster relief and giving first responders - from the U.S. military to the Coast Guard and others comprehensive training and tools in disaster relief.  Coordinating with private companies like Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and others to create a standard “U.S. Care Package” for post-emergency relief which reflects the U.S. brand.
6. Customs and Immigration -  Use the “dead spaces” in the customs process to help create a U.S. brand experience with video and visuals which are informative (meaning that they contain constantly updating information) and represent our values.

By comprehensively studying the individual interactions between U.S. government employees and foreign nationals, a new U.S. brand manager could improve the tone and quality of these interactions.  This would make a real contribution to U.S. Public Diplomacy.

Brand: Sony, Elvis Presley
Execution: Online Viral
Target: Potential Buyers for “Elvis Presley Christmas Duets”
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
The Sony album “Elvis Presley Christmas Duets” pairs Elvis with Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood and others on some of his Christmas classics like “Blue Christmas.”   To promote the album release (which has already put Elvis on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the first time in a decade),  Sony is giving fans a chance to record a duet with Elvis and send it to friends and family as an e-card.  Sing With The King allows fans to either record their own voice or send the Martina McBride “Blue Christmas” duet with Elvis as a less painful alternative.

What Works:
Sing with the King is a clever extension of a time-honored holiday tradition of cute send-alongs (dancing elves, anyone?) by Sony.  From the brand manager’s perspective both this album and this promotion remind us of the enduring value of iconic brands like Elvis and how easy it is to renew them when it’s done with taste.  The promotion is simple and well-executed.  This advertising blog expects it to be among the top-10 virals this holiday season.

What Doesn’t:
Given our enduring fascination with YouTube and the success of American Idol, it is more than a little surprising that Sony hasn’t launched a “Sing with the King” contest or challenge.  As with Idol, the losers would undoubtedly be more appealing than the winners.

Branding Bottom Line:
The holiday is with us for just a moment, but The King lives on …

This week our guest expert is Susan Gunelius, author of Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon.

1. In your new book you analyze the Harry Potter phenomenon. What part did the personal story of J.K. Rowling play in the success of the book?

J.K. Rowling’s personal story actually played a big part in the initial success of the Harry Potter brand.  Her rags-to-riches Cinderella story was a goldmine for the press who ate it up and spit it back out to anyone who would listen.  As the brand grew, more and more people became intrigued by the first-time author/poverty-stricken single mother who wrote a book that so many people were talking about, thus generating more word of mouth marketing and more sales, but without that initial attention from the press, the brand may not have taken off the way it did.  We’ll never know.

I didn’t realize when I first started researching Harry Potter that the online buzz played such a significant role in the success of the brand.  Blogs were just starting out when Harry Potter began picking up steam.  At a time when most companies and brands were trying to crush that type of citizen journalism, J.K. Rowling and Scholastic embraced it.  Of course, their first reaction was to bring lawsuits against bloggers and fan sites, but they quickly realized that the power of what would eventually come to be known as the social web was too big to turn their backs on.  By letting the online conversation grow and flourish, the brand did, too.  In other words, by letting consumers experience the brands in their own ways, talk about it, and live it, the brand thrived beyond anyone’s expectations.

3. Is there also a lesson about the unexpected benefits of blogging that you can share here?

This goes back to the power of the social web and the early recognition by J.K. Rowling and Scholastic of the power of the online buzz that played a big part in the ultimate success of the Harry Potter brand.  Companies and brands are still not 100% supportive of bloggers, but they can hold an enormous amount of influence.  The success of Harry Potter by way of a strong online buzz, fueled primarily by bloggers and fan sites, is evidence of that.

4. What is your take on the Motrin Moms controversy?

As the mother of 4-year old triplets, I can say without a doubt that I don’t carry my kids as a “fashion accessory” as that Motrin ad implied.  With that said, I think the controversy is another example of the power of the social web wherein a vocal few can influence many (you know the old phrase, “the squeaky wheel gets the oil,” regardless of how right or wrong that is).  It goes back to the old shampoo commercial from the 1970s, “and she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…,”  The only difference is that today messages travel much faster, and influential bloggers, whose posts get syndicated, appear high in search rankings, etc., have the ability to reach a broad audience very quickly.  Marketers have to be careful to be politically correct these days, to a point where it’s nearly impossible not to offend someone.  It’s a challenge that’s far more difficult today with the existence of the social web than it was even a decade ago.

5. What is your favorite online marketing initiative right now?

The first one that popped into my mind is one that I just wrote a blog post on my company blog this week .  It’s about the new JCPenney viral video, Beware of the Doghouse.  The video and corresponding website were created to support the JCPenney in-store jewelry center.  The video is funny and timely, and the interactive website is really amusing.

6. What did you learn as a marketer from the U.S. Presidential campaign?

Branding consistency and inclusive marketing are more important than ever.  I wrote a post about that on my blog, too.

7. 3 Tips for Entrepreneurs in a recession?

To build business - keep networking (online and offline).  To save money - ditch your website and replace it with a Wordpress CMS site and use freelancers and open source applications.

8. One book in addition to Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon that you’d recommend?

My copywriting book, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps.

9. One online resource you could not do without?

Google - I use it for so much - search, email, applications, Alerts, Reader, YouTube, AdSense, AdWords - you name it.

10. Your favorite brand for the month?

I’ve been on an Apple kick lately.  It’s such a great example of relationship branding and societal branding.  I even fell victim to Apple’s marketing messages and got a Mac a couple of months ago.  Now, if only I could get an iPhone without AT&T as the carrier, but that’s another story, entirely.